Distribution of uranium in German bottled and tap water

The results presented in this paper on uranium in bottled and tap water were determined within the scope of the project “European Groundwater Geochemistry: Bottled Water” of the Geochemistry Expert Group of EuroGeoSurveys. The analyses of bottled water provide an inexpensive approach to obtain information about European groundwater geochemistry. For this study, the uranium concentrations in 1785 European mineral water samples were analyzed by ICP–QMS in the BGR laboratories. The dataset is used to obtain a first impression about natural concentration levels and variation of uranium in groundwater (and bottled water) at the German and European scale.     

Improved regional scale processes reflected in projected hydrological changes over large European catchments

For the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the recent version of the coupled atmosphere/ocean general circulation model (GCM) of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology has been used to conduct an ensemble of transient climate simulations These simulations comprise three control simulations for the past century covering the period 1860–2000, and nine simulations for the future climate (2001–2100) using greenhouse gas (GHG) and aerosol concentrations according to the three IPCC scenarios B1, A1B and A2. For each scenario three simulations were performed. The global simulations were dynamically downscaled over Europe using the regional climate model (RCM) REMO at 0.44° horizontal resolution (about 50 km), whereas the physics packages of the GCM and RCM largely agree. The regional simulations comprise the three control simulations (1950–2000), the three A1B simulations and one simulation for B1 as well as for A2 (2001–2100). In our study we concentrate on the climate change signals in the hydrological cycle and the 2 m temperature by comparing the mean projected climate at the end of the twenty-first century (2071–2100) to a control period representing current climate (1961–1990). The robustness of the climate change signal projected by the GCM and RCM is analysed focussing on the large European catchments of Baltic Sea (land only), Danube and Rhine. In this respect, a robust climate change signal designates a projected change that sticks out of the noise of natural climate variability. Catchments and seasons are identified where the climate change signal in the components of the hydrological cycle is robust, and where this signal has a larger uncertainty. Notable differences in the robustness of the climate change signals between the GCM and RCM simulations are related to a stronger warming projected by the GCM in the winter over the Baltic Sea catchment and in the summer over the Danube and Rhine catchments. Our results indicate that the main explanation for these differences is that the finer resolution of the RCM leads to a better representation of local scale processes at the surface that feed back to the atmosphere, i.e. an improved representation of the land sea contrast and related moisture transport processes over the Baltic Sea catchment, and an improved representation of soil moisture feedbacks to the atmosphere over the Danube and Rhine catchments.     

On the cosmological evolution of the quasar population

Zwei ausgewählte Felder (südöstlich der Galaxie M 82 und in SA 57) werden vollständig spektroskopisch nach Quasaren durchmustert. Die (N — m)-Relation wird um 0.4 bzw. 1.6 Größenklassen in bezug auf den von KRON und CHIU (1981) bestimmten Werte erweitert. Konsequenzen für Modelle der Entwicklung der Leuchtkraftfunktion werden diskutiert.     

Quasars in the field of 88 Leonis

We present spectroscopically confirmed quasars in the 25 sq. degrees A1-field to a limiting magnitude of m_B = 18.0. Our estimate of the quasar density of 0.28 ± 0.11 objects per sq. degree based on the “complete” sample of A1-qusars is in agreement with the observed integral number-magnitude relation. However, we consider this value as still a lower limit of the quasar density in the A1-field due to the uncertainties during the colour based selection of objects, especially their brightness dependence, resulting in serious selection effects. Thus, the quasar density of the A1 survey may be underestimated up to 30% and does not contradict the recently estimated incompletness of the BQS survey.